I certainly hope the new X-star has a different hull, not just larger with more ballast compartments. The X-25 throws a great wake (I would even argue better than an X-star but that is personal preference) with significantly less ballast. A more efficient hull in the X-star would be nice.

The X-2 is also redesigned this year. Did the hull change or just the top?

A cvt would be perfect for a wakeboat. My lady has a altima coupe with one and it's awesome when you are accelerating because there is no shifts just a long progressive one. It takes getting used to but it's pretty cool. I though the problem with cvt's however was the lack to handle huge power and loads. Seems that would be a problem in a wake boat

It's not really unused gas, it's more sediment that's a result of a less efficient burn (I hope I have that right). Someone more familiar with diesels can explain but most of today's diesel engines, despite the looks of exhaust are relatively clean to the environment vs competing gasoline engines.

Another great point is you don't die from carbon monoxide poisoning from diesels, you can get sick, but it's not a killer like gasoline engines. MAJOR PLUS!

ummm. no they r not. They put a diesel in the x80 a couple years ago and there are several marine diesel manufacturers out there. They are stuck with ilmor no more than they were stuck with indmar. The boat manufacturer decides who motor they decide to use. I suspect that the reason for not putting a diesel in the star is actually cost, surprisingly. I believe the vw motor they had a couple years back was a shade under 30k for the option. That being said they either pass that on to the consumer making the boat even more expensive or lose some of their margin. The other thing i have heard and this could be totally off is that with all the emissions standers the EPA is placing on diesels it may not be all that easy to adapt for the application.

i think you actually just agreed with me. MC neither makes nor marinizes engines. they source them from a marinizer...and they are limited to the marinizers at hand (not just illmoor, indmar, etc).

i agree with you...i suspect the reason we dont see diesels in light boats is twofold: 1) cost and 2) most inland lakes do not have on the water diesel pumps.

to put it in perspective, if Ford, GM and Dodge have bailed on the idea of a light duty diesel for 1/2 ton trucks, of which they will sell over 1m annually, then i suspect it is not cost effective to pursue a low volume diesel for boats (i know, i know, it is not apples to apples).

that motor would probably work quite well. to achieve equivalent prop RPMs you would need to regear the V drive from 1.5-1 down to 1.15-1 so the torque difference would not be quite as significant as initial numbers lead you to believe. The PCM ZR6 motor delivers 600ftlbs of torque to a prop through a 1.5-1 gear reduction. The diesel specd above would deliver 730ft lbs of torque through a 1.15-1 trans spinning the prop at the exact same speed. That's an increase of 20% more power to the prop. Weight is only 60 lbs more.

The lack of Diesel gas pumps is one main reason along with top end speed. Granted wakeboats don't need to go over 28, but no one wants that to be your top speed. Since they only spin to 3800 rpms they have to change the transmission and that might be an issue to.

I am very impressed that MC was able to keep this under wraps until the show. That is tough thing to do when so many hands have been involved with designing, building and testing this boat, and when all those hands have camera phones, facebook, twitter, ww....

good job MC.

I am excited to see it, and more excited to start reading all the mastercraft bashing that will go down immediately after it is revealed

Diesel and a CVT would be awesome. But I suspect it would add 20K to place a diesel with a CVT in a boat over the current gas engine and std V drive.

Or an integrated electric motor that only assisted the gasoline engine during the first 30 seconds of load to help get the rider out of the water and the boat to plane. Since electric motors have instant torque, this would really be helpful. Make the assist user switchable so when not ballasted the electric motor could be set not to kick in. If you only were using the electric motor a few minutes of every hour, the batteries should last most of the day.

Your right about that one Johnny. Whah it's to expensive, Mastercraft has lost their way. Whah the tower sways, no it's ugly, no it dosent fold easy, no it' fold's to easy the power part will fail. Whah To much bling. Whah Whah Whah

The PCM ZR6 motor delivers 600ftlbs of torque to a prop through a 1.5-1 gear reduction.

just so we are clear here, the engine does not provide more torque, it is the gear reduction of the transmission that provides the torque. before PCM gets that engine to marinize it, GM specs it at 400 lb/ft @ 4k rpm. the 1.5:1 transmission makes the propshaft torque approx 600 lb/ft (not including the parasitic loss to the transmission and v drive friction/drag). ref: http://www.gmpowertrain.com/Librarie...rine.sflb.ashx

the one thing we are not taking in to consideration is overall "gearing" which is affected by the prop selection. loading down a boat is similar to putting bigger tires on a truck in terms of load placed on the drivetrain...to return the truck to its optimal operating range, lower gears (numerically higher) often have to be swapped in. changing prop pitch is similar to changing differential gears. if you run the same 1.5:1 transmission in the diesel boat, you could run a higher pitch prop to regain your optimal operating range.

This idea of the current Xstar hull being an I/O wouldn't that be the "R" in R&D, research?

I would have expected it to go something like this, an R&D engineer at MC studying all kinds of hulls and what type of wake they produce, finds one that is close to the type they are looking to produce. Brings it to his design team and says guys look at this how can we make it an inboard? They spec it up. Pretty sure that's how R&D works. Doesn't always start from an idea on a napkin.

A cvt would be perfect for a wakeboat. My lady has a altima coupe with one and it's awesome when you are accelerating because there is no shifts just a long progressive one. It takes getting used to but it's pretty cool. I though the problem with cvt's however was the lack to handle huge power and loads. Seems that would be a problem in a wake boat

idk how long I've been saying this lol but for once someone agrees. CVT and a diesel would be a match made in heaven, it'd be efficient, and provide plenty of torque. Thats all we need, not 600 hp gassers chugging fuel. we don't need the horse power we need the torque!!!

* like the bow seating and walkthrough seating
* like the new board racks
* don't care for the rear-facing seats
* gauges are beyond bling but I like them
* need to see the wake/hull/etc to pass final judgement

Looks amazing, but why do I feel like all these new boats are going to be impossible to sell in 10 years? What happens when the electronics fail?

Don't get me wrong, that dash is badass, but I am just thinking from MY perspective. My thoughts are not limited to MC and aren't even an issue that the manufacturers should care about.

I will only ever buy used boats, so in 10 years when I can actually afford this xstar, what kind of problems am I going to have trying to keep it going? If the electronics fail will i even be able to work around the problem? All electronics fail eventually. Add computer programs into the mix and things could get frustrating very quickly.

It might produce the biggest wake anyone has ever seen, but the styling is definately not going to win me over. Too dramatic for me considering its a 24' boat. Many of the style elements remind me of my parents boat. ( http://www.searay.com/Page.aspx/page...Sundancer.aspx )

Beautiful interior and appears to be very functional. The dash is also pretty awesome and over the top. However, I do not like how the rubrail dips near the stern. I know it's different etc, but I just don't like the look of that. Anybody heard a price on this thing? I'm guessing it will be pushing 120K easy

Incredible. That interior looks so well thought out and functional. Exterior looks pretty crazy but dig the video of it in the water. Can't wait to check out the wake. Most def a new bar for other manufacturers to aim at. Love it.

Hahahahaha. That ugly boat looks like the Homer Simpson designed car. Just horrible. I will admit they put some effort and pulled off the front and rear facing seats. Definately better then anybody else's versions. It looks like a 71 boat tail buick riviera with that big rounded out rear area. What in the hell are vent things on the vdrive sunpads? Are those head rests for the people in the rear seats? It looks like a cross between riviera and an eliminator with an F16 cockpit. power dash is completely stupid. Why would I ever want it closed? Let me guess, 150-200k? Good luck with that. It also kind of looks like a early 90's centurion falcon from the side. They tried the stupid seat for the rider to put on a board like sanger. There is another fail. It is definetely pushing the envelope but doing it in a very ugly over the top way. I basically like nothing about it other then the multifunction seats.

Sorry, I just wanted to be the first to truely hate on it. I really am starting to dislike everything Mastercraft is doing and stands for.

I'm not a MC guy at all, but I must say that this boat has some serious mount of engineering and innovation that has gone into it. WOW..... still amazed at all the little things that can be done with the seating configuration alone.

Polar Bill, It also looks a bit "low profile". Gotta worry about safety like those Sangers.

I think it actually does look pretty low profile for a 24 foot boat. I think they have that thing slammed though. I wouldn't be surprised if they had 4000+ pounds of ballast in that thing. It sure seems like it is designed for a very small group. It doesn't really look like a good family boat, it has a similar looking hull to the current xstar so it probably sucks at surfing, it is only going to be good at wakeboarding, it is huge and heavy so that is going to limit it's buyers, etc... I guess if you want the biggest and best wakeboard wake and money is no option it is a viable option. I just don't see the true hardcore riders being the one's who want to drop 125k or so on a wakeboat. You can get 95% of the wake out of a SAN230, 23LSV, 247lsv for 25-35k less or you can get an A22 or TWB23 for less then half the price and you still get 95% of the wake and 75%+ of the room. It truely only makes sense to someone who has more money then they know what to do with.

Oh and if that was a shot at me for bringing that up in the cali boat builder thread, I don't mind the low profile myself too much but 90% of the potential buyers are going to be concerned with that.

For ME, it looks weird! It's all about bling bling. Top interior with awesome new idea, but we all know what it means.... more than too much $$$. When I ride, I don'y give a sh ! t about how the electric gage works (like a light on a old Ford Probe), how the seating is or how the tour collaps. I only care about the wake. Whatever all the riders said, what I see at 0:25 on this vid is a washy wake like 5 feet before the rider so.... I'm not in for this one! Anyway, I'm not a Mastercraft guy (except for the X-25). Since I saw the wake (on a 2010) with the plug an play, I'm not impressed at all. Anyway, the only boat who really impress me each time I saw the wake is the Epic 23V and I rinde behind each w-e! ; ) lol

I think the wake will be awesome, you know they have that boat loaded. If you watch practically any video of pros behind w/e it may be MC, Nautique, or Malibu the other side of the wake is usually washed out b/c of how much weight they put in the boats. But, it always clears up when the come in and hit it.

I think this Star will surf better than the last one as well because the way they designed the ballast tanks in the back to run up the side of the boat. It should cause it to sit lower and produce a better wave.

24 ft long?! And that's not including the platform?!?! That things a beast! And I thought the 23 ft wakeboats were pushing the limit. They should keep the original Xstar in the line up and just name this thing the Death Star! ! Hahaha

Fred, I see what you are talking about now. It could also be they didn't have the speed dialed. In some of the other shots it appears like it is cleaned up nicely. Cannot be sure until it's in person though.

I really think MC nailed it with the original pickle fork 04- ? whenever. I remember hating the picklefork front end at first but it has grown on me. The tower design really fit with the boat and the price wasnt too outrageous. The CIE guys had one of the best looking ones ive ever seen. I had a little bit of boat envy, to say the least. But I will never have boat envy for the newest version. The hull design/flare on the stern is awful. And that tower just is plain ugly to me. When the only good thing to come out of a boat is the seat design, I just gotta wonder who MC uses for focus groups on the marketing side of things. Maybe Im just not who they are targeting. To each their own I guess.

yeah np3 and fred. I noticed that too on the tantrum. he hits that wake with terrible wash. I am guessing that they were dialing the speed cuz in the shots that follow the wake was really clean on the side they were hitting. The wake looks amazing so far. I wonder how much weight was in it. You can see a big 500+ bag in the walk through in one of the shots.

No silly, that boosts the ballast up by another 500lbs! Kind of like the Bu 247's that have the 90 gallon, just more ballast.

The X45 has a 90 gallon tank too. I think it is awesome to have a big gas tank. Never have to worry about running out of gas. I can go constantly for at least 2 days without wondering if I am going to run out.